The Prince and the Plunder

A book on how Britain took one boy and piles of treasures from Ethiopia

Two school photographs

Published / by Andrew Heavens / Leave a Comment

You have to zoom right in on the screen to spot him. There are more than 40 boys, dressed in dark jackets and starched white collars, holding still for the long exposure in a classic school photo line-up. Foliage hangs off diamond-shaped windows and patterned brick walls in the background. A severe Victorian teacher with a severe Victorian beard sits in the middle of the ranks of teenagers. And to the side of the frame there’s a list of who’s who in the class photo, row by row, left to right. It’s a posh private school in central England, Rugby no less. So it’s all surnames, no first names, with just one exception – Cox, Melly, Hannay, Rigby, Drake, Swetenham, Bennett, Dunell, Swann, Sadler, Cook and “Alamayu”.